SIXTEEN non-violent Just Stop Oil protesters handed draconian sentences since July have been granted an extraordinary mass hearing before the Court of Appeal next year, it was announced on Saturday.

The hearing on January 29 and 30 at the Royal Courts of Justice in London will examine four separate cases involving activists from the group. Key points of contention will include whether conscientious motivation should be considered a mitigating factor.

The outcome is anticipated to be a defining moment for protest rights in Britain.

The 16 include the “Whole Truth Five,” who organised a protest on the M25 calling for a halt to new oil and gas licences. Roger Hallam, Cressida Gethin, Louise Lancaster, Daniel Shaw, and Lucia Whittaker De Abreu received a combined total of 21 years for their action.

At the time, UN special rapporteur Michel Forst said the verdict marked a dark day for “anyone concerned with the exercise of their fundamental freedoms” in Britain.

The court will also review the cases of George Simonson, Theresa Higginson, Paul Bell, Gaie Delap, and Paul Sousek, jailed after taking part in the action itself; Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland who threw soup on glass protecting Van Gogh’s famous Sunflowers painting at the National Gallery; and Larch Maxey, Chris Bennett, Samuel Johnson and Joe Howlett who occupied tunnels dug under the road leading to an oil terminal in Thurrock.

Harsh sentences followed calls from “independent” extremism adviser Lord Walney to ban groups such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action, and judges told juries that defendants’ concerns about climate change were irrelevant to the offences.

Spokesman for the Free Political Prisoners campaign Lex Korte said: “A subset of judges have responded all too eagerly to the call from the disgraced Lord Walney, the arms and oil industry lobbyist, to jail peaceful climate campaigners for longer than if they’d committed serious crimes of sexual violence.

“This would be insane at any time, let alone in the midst of climate breakdown and Britain’s prisons crisis. 

“It is corruption designed to shield from accountability the fossil fuel industry, which has systematically suppressed from the public the scientific evidence about the catastrophic impacts of their deadly businesses.

“What’s at stake in this hearing is not just the freedom of some courageous individuals: it’s the credibility of the British legal system and the lifeblood of democracy itself.”